The list of India’s richest persons can vary from year to year, depending on their latest net worth and financial performance.
#1 Mukesh Ambani
- NET WORTH – $73.5 B
- World Rank – 12
- AGE – 64
- SOURCE OF WEALTH – diversified
- RESIDENCE – Mumbai, India
- CITIZENSHIP – India
- MARITAL STATUS – Married
- CHILDREN – 3
- EDUCATION – Drop Out, Stanford University; Bachelor of Science in Engineering, University of Mumbai
Success Story:
- Mukesh Ambani chairs and runs $88 billion (revenue) Reliance Industries, which has interests in petrochemicals, oil and gas, telecom and retail.
- Reliance was founded by his late father Dhirubhai Ambani, a yarn trader, in 1966 as a small textile manufacturer.
- After his father’s death in 2002, Ambani and his younger sibling Anil divvied up the family empire.
- In 2016, Reliance sparked a price war in India’s hyper-competitive telecom market with the launch of 4G phone service Jio.
- During the Covid-19 lockdown, Ambani raised more than $20 billion selling a third of Jio to a string of investors, such as Facebook and Google.
#2 Gautam Adani & family
- NET WORTH – $58.7 B
- World Rank – 21
- AGE – 58
- SOURCE OF WEALTH – infrastructure, commodities, Self Made
- RESIDENCE – Ahmedabad, India
- CITIZENSHIP – India
- MARITAL STATUS – Married
- CHILDREN – 2
Success Story:
- Infrastructure tycoon Gautam Adani controls Mundra Port, India’s largest, in his home state of Gujarat.
- His $13 billion (revenue) Adani Group’s interests span infrastructure, commodities, power generation and transmission and real estate.
- Adani owns Abbot Point, a controversial coal mining project in Australia, whose Carmichael coal mine is billed as one of the world’s largest.
- In June 2019, Adani got permission to start work on the Australian coal mine after a 9-year wait.
- Adani acquired a 74% stake in Mumbai International Airport, India’s second-busiest, in September 2020.
#3 Shiv Nadar
- NET WORTH – $22.5 B
- World Rank – 77
- AGE – 75
- SOURCE OF WEALTH – software services, Self Made
- RESIDENCE – Delhi, India
- MARITAL STATUS – Married
- CHILDREN – 1
- EDUCATION – Bachelor of Arts/Science, PSG College of Technology
Success Story:
- Indian IT pioneer Shiv Nadar cofounded HCL in a garage in 1976 to make calculators and microprocessors.
- Today, he chairs HCL Technologies, a $9.9 billion (revenue) company, which is India’s third-largest software services provider by market cap.
- In July 2020, he stepped down as chairman of HCL Technologies, handing over the position to his daughter, Roshni Nadar Malhotra.
- HCL Technologies, which employs 150,000 people in 49 countries worldwide, hires high school grads and trains them on the job.
- One of India’s leading philanthropists, Nadar has donated $662 million to his Shiv Nadar Foundation, which backs education-related causes.
#4 Lakshmi Mittal
- NET WORTH – $18.1 B
- World Rank – 101
- AGE – 70
- SOURCE OF WEALTH – steel
- RESIDENCE – London, United Kingdom
- CITIZENSHIP – India
- MARITAL STATUS – Married
- CHILDREN – 2
- EDUCATION – Bachelor of Arts/Science, St Xavier’s College Calcutta
Success Story:
- Lakshmi Mittal serves as chairman of $53.3 billion (revenue) ArcelorMittal, the world’s largest steel and mining company by output.
- Hailing from a steel clan, he separated from his siblings to start Mittal Steel then went on to merge the company with France’s Arcelor in 2006.
- The company reported a net loss of $0.7 billion in 2020, a year in which steel shipments declined by close to a fifth.
- In 2019, Arcelor and Nippon Steel completed their $5.9 billion acquisition of Essar Steel, once controlled by billionaires Shashi and Ravi Ruia.
- In January 2021, Mittal ceded the CEO’s position to his son, Aditya Mittal, but remains executive chairman of Arcelor Mittal.
#5 Savitri Jindal & family
- NET WORTH – $14.5 B
- World Rank – 138
- AGE – 71
- SOURCE OF WEALTH – steel
- RESIDENCE – Hisar, India
- CITIZENSHIP – India
- MARITAL STATUS – Widowed
- CHILDREN – 9
Success Story:
- Jindal Group, whose interests include steel, power, cement and infrastructure, is chaired by Savitri Jindal, widow of founder Om Prakash Jindal.
- Upon O.P. Jindal’s death in 2005 in a helicopter crash, the group’s companies were divided among his four sons, who now run them independently.
- The biggest assets of the group are overseen by her Mumbai-based son Sajjan Jindal, who runs JSW Steel, among much else.
- Jindal’s younger son Naveen’s Jindal Steel & Power, once a high-flier, is weighed down by $4.7 billion in debt.
#6 Radhakishan Damani
- NET WORTH – $14.4 B
- World Rank – 142
- AGE – 66
- SOURCE OF WEALTH – retail, investments, Self Made
- RESIDENCE – Mumbai, India
- CITIZENSHIP – India
- MARITAL STATUS – Married
- CHILDREN – 3
Success Story:
- Veteran Mumbai investor Radhakishan Damani became India’s retail king after the March 2017 IPO of his supermarket chain Avenue Supermart.
- Damani got into retailing in 2002 with one store in suburban Mumbai. Today his company has 221 DMart stores across India.
- Damani also holds stakes in a range of companies, from tobacco firm VST industries to cement producer India Cements.
- His property portfolio includes the 156-room Radisson Blu Resort in Alibag, a popular beachfront getaway close to Mumbai.
#7 Uday Kotak
- NET WORTH – $14.7 B
- World Rank – 137
- AGE – 62
- SOURCE OF WEALTH – banking, Self Made
- RESIDENCE – Mumbai, India
- CITIZENSHIP – India
- MARITAL STATUS – Married
- CHILDREN – 2
- EDUCATION – Bachelor of Arts/Science, Bombay University; Master of Business Administration, University of Bombay
Success Story:
- Spurning his family’s trading business, Uday Kotak started a finance firm in 1985 then went on convert it into a bank in 2003.
- His Kotak Mahindra Bank is now among India’s top four banks in the private sector, boosted by its 2014 acquisition of ING Bank’s Indian operations.
- Kotak’s 811 app draws its name from November 8, the day in 2016 when the government cancelled 86% of all rupees in circulation.
- In June 2020, Kotak sold some shares to reduce his stake in the bank as mandated by the Reserve Bank of India.
#8 Kumar Birla
- NET WORTH – $12.8 B
- World Rank – 170
- AGE – 53
- SOURCE OF WEALTH – commodities
- RESIDENCE – Mumbai, India
- CITIZENSHIP – India
- MARITAL STATUS – Married
- CHILDREN – 3
- EDUCATION – Master of Business Administration, London Business School; Bachelor of Arts/Science, University of Bombay
Success Story:
- Commodities king Kumar Birla is the fourth generation head of the storied, $48.3 billion (revenue) Aditya Birla Group.
- The group’s interests span cement and aluminium to telecom and financial services.
- Birla inherited the family empire at age 28 when his father Aditya Birla died in 1995.
- In October 2019, The European Commission approved the $2.6 billion acquisition by his Novelis of Aleris, an aluminium producer in Ohio.
- His telecom firm Vodafone Idea, formed by the 2018 merger between his Idea Cellular and Vodafone India, was renamed Vi.
#9 Cyrus Poonawalla
- NET WORTH – $12.8 B
- World Rank – 174
- AGE – 79
- SOURCE OF WEALTH – vaccines
- RESIDENCE – Pune, India
- CITIZENSHIP – India
- MARITAL STATUS – Widowed
- CHILDREN – 1
- EDUCATION – Bachelor of Arts/Science, Pune University; Doctorate, Pune University
Success Story:
- Son of a horse breeder, Cyrus Poonawalla founded Serum Institute of India in 1966 and built it into the world’s largest vaccine maker (by doses).
- Serum produces over 1.5 billion doses annually of a range of vaccines, including for measles, polio and flu.
- Under his U.K.-educated son Adar, Serum’s CEO, the company has invested $800 million to build a new factory to make Covid-19 vaccines.
- Serum has multiple Covid-19 vaccine partnerships and has launched Covishield, the vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University.
- In February 2021, his son struck a deal to acquire a 60% stake in listed finance firm Magma Fincorp for $475 million.
#10 Dilip Shanghvi
- NET WORTH – $11.9 B
- World Rank – 187
- AGE – 65
- SOURCE OF WEALTH – pharmaceuticals, Self Made
- RESIDENCE – Mumbai, India
- CITIZENSHIP – India
- MARITAL STATUS – Married
- CHILDREN – 2
- EDUCATION – Bachelor of Arts/Science, Calcutta University
Success Story:
- The son of a pharmaceuticals distributor, Dilip Shanghvi borrowed $200 from his father to start Sun Pharma in 1983 to make psychiatric drugs.
- The company is India’s most valuable listed pharma outfit with annual revenue of $4.5 billion.
- He grew Sun through a series of acquisitions, the biggest of which was the 2014 purchase of scandal-tainted rival Ranbaxy Laboratories for $4 billion.
- In recent years, Shanghvi has personally invested in renewable energy and oil and gas.
